Existing video on demand (VOD) collection and distribution techniques Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) often rely on manual instructions and manually initiated processes to acquire and to distribute a piece of VOD content to a target subscriber. Content is distributed to distribution sites and from the distribution sites the content is delivered to the target subscriber.
Typically, subscribers request content; the content is located at a distribution site; the content is exported to a proper media format (i.e., for IPTV systems); and the content is delivered to the local environments of the subscribers for viewing consumption. With this approach, the distribution sites may quickly become degraded resulting in poor bandwidth, poor processing, and poor storage management at the distribution sites.
Moreover, subscribers, who are identified as being of more importance to a content service provider, may not receive the preferential treatment and service that they should receive in this type of operating environment; or if they do, then the mechanism by which they receive the preferential treatment is ad hoc, manually intensive, and fraught with quality assurance problems.
Thus, techniques for more efficiently managing, packaging, and distributing VOD content for IPTV systems are desirable.